Ireland to name World Cup squad on Sunday

Ireland have changed the date for the announcement of Rugby World Cup squad which will now be unveiled on Sunday.

Head coach Andy Farrell was originally scheduled to name the 33-man squad on Monday but now will make the announcement at 16:30 BST on Sunday.

With Dan Sheehan and Rónan Kelleher cleared of major injuries, Farrell will have to cut down on six players to trim the training which now has 39 members. Iain Henderson, who will lead Ireland against Samoa said the players on the edge will be determined to put on a good show in their final warm-up fixture.

“A lot of the players have been here before and they’ve played in a similar scenario,” he said.

“Close to half the squad haven’t been in this position before but you can’t keep control of things that happen in games in terms of the injury side of things, so what the players are focusing on is how they’re going to put their best foot forward for Faz (Andy Farrell) to get a good glimpse of them.

“He knows each one of us pretty intimately at this stage and I feel that the final step that the players can take is to actually go out and show it again in the Test match this weekend.”